This document discusses manifolds and kernels on manifolds. It defines manifolds and different types of manifolds such as topological manifolds, differentiable manifolds, and Riemannian manifolds. It then discusses Hilbert spaces, kernels, and reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. It explains that defining kernels on manifolds allows applying kernel methods to nonlinear manifolds. It discusses challenges in defining positive definite kernels on manifolds using geodesic distance and provides conditions for when the Gaussian RBF kernel is positive definite on a manifold. It also covers applications to pedestrian detection and visual object categorization using kernels on the manifold of symmetric positive definite matrices.